


To build a dream

by JaqofSpades



Series: They ask no quarter [2]
Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: 54 prompts in 54 days, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-29
Updated: 2014-09-28
Packaged: 2018-02-15 06:35:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2219478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaqofSpades/pseuds/JaqofSpades
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charlie decides she, Bass and Miles have been tiptoeing around the future for long enough.  It's time to grab it by the scruff of the neck.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Heart song

**Author's Note:**

> A second lot of interlocking prompt ficlets written for 54 prompts in 54 days over on the nbc_revolution [page at LJ.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt: road trip

California is tattier than Philadelphia ever was, and hotter than Georgia. She'd hate it, Charlie thinks, if she couldn't smell the sea on her hands and in her hair. They do their meet and greet, wheel Bass out to shake hands and put on the smarm, then continue their road trip, all equally desperate to put General Monroe behind them.

Sightseeing, Bass calls it as they make their way north along the old Pacific Highway. Charlie flicks him a sidelong look and Miles just harrumphs into his hipflask, but they all know what they're doing. The three-day bender after she'd asked _when_ exactly they would start back towards Austin had proved that. 

Maybe she shouldn't have joined them in drinking the entire contents of the little beachside bar, Charlie thinks gingerly, especially when she'd only floated the idea to test her theory. Decisions were probably better made sober, after all.

“Why go back?” she asks the restless ceiling over the bed, Bass and Miles lying as stiff as boards either side of her. “Why don't we just pick a town out here, and stay?” 

“Your mother? Blanchard? The glory of great state of Texas?” Miles offers, but he's far from persuasive, hangover notwithstanding. Bass says nothing, but she glances sideways to catch the bitter twist to his mouth. In Texas, Monroe will stalk him till the day he dies. Here, he's just another scary guy drifted in from the carnage in the East.

They've been tiptoeing around the future for months now, but it's time to grab it by the scruff of the neck.

“Let's find a place we like, and then stay. Somewhere with a beach,” she tells the room, and they don't say yes, not straight away, but things are different, after that. They move more slowly, and ask different questions.

Banning had a pretty little harbour, but shit defences, and the good folk of Praskie stared as if they'd each grown a second head. Tourmaline was too isolated, and Shawnee just too big. They head inland following the highway, and she mourns the great blue expanse as it falls behind them, but … they're looking for a home.

They fight their way up into the coastal mountains, winding high over cliffs and into lofty green wilderness of endlessly tall trees. The only sign of something beyond is the light, brighter and more yellow as increasing amounts of sunlight punch through the green swathe overhead. It's still a surprise, though, when they stumble out into the blue, and beyond, clear white sand, blinding after days of nothing but green.

Charlie blinks into the glare, and starts up the mountain of sand. She can smell the sea beyond, and something in her bones tells her this is it. The end of their road.

And when she crests the dune, her heart starts to sing.


	2. Take the rough with the smooth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt: sea salt

Charlie is halfway up the dune before they think to start after her, and by the time he and Bass make the top, she's barrelling down the other side.

And on the beach, stripping, knives and bow and sword, shirt and jeans and underwear piling haphazardly on top of each other. Bass grins, wide as the beach itself, and calls rock to his scissors. Dammit. He's never wanted guard duty less.

“I'll just stay here then,” Miles grumps to their vanishing backs, folding himself down onto the sand next to the pile of weapons and clothing and everyday cares. The soothing murmur of the waves, the glitter of sun on sea, the joy in their voices – he's smiling into nothingness when Charlie emerges from the waves, all long wet hair and delicious sandy curves.

Bass follows, cock pointing skyward, and his own twitches in sympathy. They're like something from one of those books he read in high school, Bass the beautiful, lovelorn sailor to her irresistible siren. Maybe he's the rocks, Miles thinks gloomily, but the dark mood evaporates even quicker than it came, and he finds himself grinning. 

Because he sure wants to wreck them.

Charlie's shadow falls on him, and he smirks up at her, hoping his intentions are obvious. She raises one eyebrow in question, and then lowers her bare ass down next to his.

“Your turn for a swim?”

“Not yet,” he replies, then tosses Bass his spare t-shirt. “Here. Put this to good use.”

And yup, they're still on the same page, because Bass uses the soft, worn t-shirt to swish the sand from Charlie's face, and then her throat, before allowing it to wander down into her cleavage. He's barely touching her with the cloth, letting it kiss her skin but never staying in one place long enough to satisfy, merely sensitising flesh that begs for rougher handling. Miles leans close and puffs his hot breath over her nipple, awed by how quickly it rises to a hard, red peak. He wants to flick it with his tongue, to pull it between his teeth, but not yet. He's feeling … merciless.

Charlie closes her eyes and pretends to ignore them. She manages it well enough, merely surrendering to the odd little huff and gasp, until they begin to lick the sea salt from her body. In tandem, each of them pinning an arm over her head, dark reflections of each other.

She shudders when their mouths land either side of her neck, sucking and biting as if determined to drag the very blood from her veins. She twists underneath them and Bass growls, while Miles knows the best punishment is to push her higher. He slicks his mouth along the hard muscle of her bicep and tricep and then plunges into the salty depths of her armpit, nuzzling at the fur there, then giving it a sharp, hard tug. She lets out a shocked yelp, and it's a reminder that his glorious, lethal niece is still an innocent in some ways. But he'll be damned if he doesn't plan to help her unlock every last bit of her body's erotic potential.

She's panting by the time they nuzzle underneath the dizzying tilt of her breast, shaping it with broad, flat strokes of their tongues, moving closer and closer to the pouting centres with every pass. Miles is starting to lose it, his hand fumbling to release himself from his pants even as Bass adores each individual bump on her puffy, blood-flushed aerolae, laving and sucking as if intent on finding every microscopic grain of salt still lingering on her skin.

Miles lets his cock spring free, then reaches over to where Bass is threatening to blow his load all over the sand. He wraps his fingers around the base of that beautiful, pink cock, telling him to hold the fuck up. This is about Charlie, right now. (Later, though … he can't help but wonder what it'd feel like, all that gritty golden sand, rough over Bass' smooth.)

Charlie's pained moan drags him back into the moment, and he smiles. What's good for the gander is about to drive the goose fucking insane.

Miles scoops up a handful of sand and pours it over her, a relentless stream onto the hard, red pebble of her nipple. His fingers are already sticky from Bass' ridiculous amounts of precome, and immediately coat themselves in the sand, making his touch like sandpaper. This time, Miles doesn't bother to be gentle, capturing both nipples between thumb and forefinger, all the better to twist and rub and pinch.

The guttural yell is pure frustration, and Charlie lets loose a long string of curses as her hips buck fruitlessly, searching for stimulation. Her eyes dart from Miles to Bass and back again, and a decision is obviously made, because she yanks her arms down, plunging one hand straight into her pussy. She takes the orgasm hard and fast, mashing at her clit with unsteady fingers as she forces an end to their standoff, then finger fucking herself through the spasms.

“We would have gotten there eventually, you know,” he points out, trying not to sound to smug. Charlie's eyes narrow, and for a moment, he wonders if she's going to take a swing at him. Then she starts to smirk. 

“I know,” she purrs, bathing them in her Cheshire Cat grin, then spreading her legs wide. “The way I see it? You're still going to.”  
*


	3. Home

His body is still languid and wrung out when his sniper's eyes spot the flash on the horizon. He lets himself drift closer to Bass, then catches his attention with a slow blink and the slightest jerk of his head.

Bass takes a minute or two to study the headland curving around the far end of the dune, then his fingers flicker in the most minute of signals. Not close enough to attack, and probably not moving, but a reflection nonetheless. Could be field glasses, or a gunsight, or just the sun bouncing off a shiny roof, Miles considers gloomily. They should probably get dressed.

He stares at the ridge one more time, then reaches for his pants. His hands are slow, though, as if refusing to cooperate. Perhaps the sea has stolen his willpower. Or maybe it was hot rasp of Bass inside of him, intensified by the wet heaven of Charlie's mouth on his cock. He'd been suspended between those two points, left hanging as they made it agonisingly slow and unrelentingly filthy, everything they had and did and still wanted to do woven into a breathless hymn of want. (He didn't think it was possible for three people to fuck any more than they had been, but apparently Charlie and Bass intended to prove otherwise.)

All he wants right now is to roll back into their bodies and drown in the pleasure, but Bass is already pulling on his boots, and whispering kisses around the rim of Charlie's ear. Words too, Miles figures, because she stretches showily then reaches for her shirt without letting her gaze stray to the headland. He almost hopes there's someone watching, someone to admire this young lioness, so beautiful and deadly and theirs. Show's over, buddy, Miles thinks with a smirk. Hope you enjoyed it. You sure as hell didn't interrupt, and later, when we've flushed you from your hole? It'll be her turn to sing.

Their welcome home, Miles thinks. Their safe harbour, incomparable Charlie. But something tugs at him, stinging and burning, until he has to acknowledge it. Not just Charlie. Bass. If there's anything the past five years of crazy has taught him, it's that Bass is home too. He's done with running, and ready to face it now.

So they're going to get up, check it out, make their world safe. Find a house, maybe. Somewhere to build.

Then get on with coming home. 

(prompt: welcome home)


	4. Reverence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter contains a brief but graphic mention of rape and sexual abuse of OCs.

Tania is filling her backpack with supplies from the storm cellar when the voices drift up from the beach. Her first instinct is to hide, to slam the door and never come out, but common sense tells her they're not here. They're down there, voices drifting up on the wind, and she needs to warn the town.

Not that they'll listen, the voice of reason jeers. She's just mad Tania Dougherty, too shy and skittish to make herself heard above the Tillys and Tonys and Tim 'bossman' Berings of the world. Maybe if she runs back and gets someone else to come and see … but she knows what could happen, then. People tended to die when the bullies took it upon themselves to decide.

So she scuttles over to the corner of the yard, and aims the tiny pair of birdwatching glasses down onto the beach. (She's gonna have to think up a good lie … Bossman figures out she's still got her Dad's fieldglasses and they'll be gone like _that_. Not like the resolution's up to much – she can barely see their features, but it's the principle of the thing. She's not allowed to have things of her own.) 

There's a tall, thin man stretched out on the beach, watching two other people play in the waves. A man and a woman, she thinks, nudging it into sharper focus. Stark naked, she realises after a second, and … oh. Walking up the beach, her like Aphrodite from the waves, and … Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Him following, angry and swollen, ready to rip into her.

A warning bubbles in her throat, but the sound never makes it past her frozen larynx. What's one more, the sulky, vicious part of her asks. Good enough for you, good enough for Tilly Bering and Jolene Harmer and even poor little Trish Thomason … least this one's a woman grown.

But she can't watch, she won't, until there's a bubble of joyous sound that drags her eyes back to the beach. It's the giggle that makes her lift the glasses again, and she drops them quickly when the sight makes her swallow, scandalised. But the glasses creep back to her face as the giggles turn into pleas, and the girl arches up into their mouths, and writhes under their hands, and finally, reaches down to give herself pleasure as the two men laugh. And that's only the prelude, because her mouth moves, and the men might tease and play, but ultimately, they obey. And the things they do – to her, and to each other – they leave Tania shaking and shocked.

Because after the sex is done, they pull her into their arms, and doze together, bodies tangled as if not touching is too much to bear. And when they wake, the girl sneaks a grin at the golden man and they roll as one towards the tall, dark stranger, their hands demanding as they tug and pull at him until he's kneeling, the other man behind him and – oh. Oh! She didn't know that men even did that, and it's an education, for sure, but, but …

The revelation is in the way the woman watches, biting her lip and eyes at half mast, as the other man pushes slowly in. It's her hands, running all over the tall man's body, and then reaching around to scrape down the other man's back. It's the hunger on her face as she prostrates herself, looking up into his eyes and smiling as she flicks her tongue over the tip of his cock, then loses all delicacy, gobbling it down on it as if she's starving. 

Tania Dougherty watches, and something inside of her snaps. This is what it's meant to be like. Not the Bossman fucking her mouth as tears run down her face. Not Lucky Delazio cornering her behind the feed store and pumping into her while his foul brother waits his turn. They call her mad, but she's 22 years old, has four children by three different men, and has never seen desire before, let alone the joy and reverence obvious in every pass of their hands. 

It's an awakening, and she'll die before she lets another man touch her without those things again.

*  
Prompt: awakening


	5. All the stories are true

Charlie spots the footprints heading around the side of the house and debates whether or not to tell Miles and Bass. There had been someone here, alright, but whoever it was is either gone or hiding now, neither of which she can see as a problem. They'd been the ones silly enough to fuck on a beach in broad daylight – so what if someone had watched? It wasn't something worth being hunted over, no matter how much of an eyeful they'd got.

But the Generals are pissy about it, so she makes a show of searching the place, moving through the surprisingly well-kept rooms, and sweeping the yards. The place is obviously abandoned – no crops, no animals, shelves bare inside – but it still manages to feel almost homey, and she can't help but picture the three of them waking up slow in that bright yellow room, and ending the day in front of this fireplace. But there was someone here – someone who knew how to disappear – so she lets them keep looking.

“Cellar,” Miles groans when they find the hatch set into the back of the house. Charlie snorts and tells him to stay up top while she and Bass check it out.

They find the girl huddled in the far corner, face purpling as fear steals her ability to breathe.

“It's okay,” Charlie says softly. “We're not going to hurt you.”

Bass quirks an eyebrow in question, then rolls his eyes at Charlie's furious glower.

“Apparently we're not,” he says drily. “So you might as well stop with the shaking.”

The girl squeaks and buries her face in her arms.

Charlie resists the urge to thump him, then gentles her voice. “Ignore him. We just … saw something from the beach, and wanted to make sure it was safe,” she explains. 

“Had to check it out,” Bass contributes after a minute. “We saw a reflection up here - binoculars or fieldglasses maybe? A gun?”

The blush tells them everything they need to know.

“Uh – my Dad's birdwatching glasses. Sorry. No gun, I swear. No weapons.”

Bass blinks at that. “You're out here unarmed? Who the fuck's looking out for you?”

The girl pushes herself to standing, as if testing whether or not they plan to hurt her. She's older than she initially looked, Charlie notes with surprise. Taller than Charlie is, actual curves, at least late teens and maybe even her own age. Just… cowed, she realises. Eyes full of demons, even if they're a different breed to the ones Charlie fights every night.

“Look after myself, don't I. No point in carrying anything – get yourself killed like that. Just give 'em what they want, and don't fight,” she says bitterly, eyes distant.

Bass nods reflexively and Charlie's stomach lurches. They'd built an empire on that very principle, him and Miles. They'd thought it the natural order of things, and never stopped to question whether or not the world should just bow down. And for every petty strongman sitting high above some broken city, there had been a thousand in towns and villages and farmsteads across the continent.

She'd fallen afoul of more than one in her time, but not every girl had a Maggie or a Nora or a pair of retired Generals to teach her how to fight back. This one certainly hadn't, Charlie thinks grimly, taking in the bruise high on her cheek and the way her body tenses every time Bass moves. 

“This is Bass. I'm Charlie. Miles is up top - doesn't like cellars,” she says, then wonders why she's dropped their aliases. She suspects it doesn't matter. There's a town out there where the demons live. She wants them to be scared. 

Because all the stories are true, and there'll be plenty more to gossip about before she's through. 

*

Prompt: demons


	6. Raining retribution

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: this gets gory in true Revolution slice-and-dice style.

The town is called Penance. 

Miles and Bass stare at the sign, agog, then grin at each other in wonder. Charlie marches grimly on, the local girl wobbling next to her on a cobbled-together bicycle. It's as worn and faded as she is, in about as many shades of black and blue.

The two women talk, occasionally, and Bass and Miles can tell there's a plan being hatched. They don't seem inclined to share, and that chafes at first, but … Bass understands why. He doesn't know if she's ever told Miles what happened in that shithole bar, and isn't about to now. It's not like he needs to know that to understand what's going on here. 

Their guide had said maybe three words, but the way she curled herself into the corner had warned them exactly what sort of slime they'd be dealing with. And when Miles raises an eyebrow at Charlie flying straight into kill-them-all mode, Bass just shakes his head. _Let it be, brother._

She's a Matheson, and some things just have to end in blood.

When Charlie Matheson is done swinging her sword, ten men lie dead in the dust. Miles had gone to wade in as well, but Bass holds him back, making him watch the look on the women's faces, the need burning in their eyes. They work together, a quiet word here, an eyebrow raise there, judging the town's crimes, one by one. They're more merciless than he or Miles would have been, Bass realises with a chill. But then, nobody has ever made a victim of him.

The townsfolk actually dragged the last man forward, a bear of a man who loomed over the two women, even as he tried to run. Charlie whipped her sword across the back of his legs, crashing him to the ground in a red welter of agony and fear. The local girl laughed, and Bass saw satisfaction glowing in Charlie's eyes as she forced the man to his knees, then nodded.

The minute the stranger pulled her knife, Bass knew what was going to happen. It was probably her eating knife, small and blunt and the worst possible tool for the job, but he forced himself to watch as she sliced it across the man's throat, leaving a satisfyingly bloody gash. He died slowly, that one - but Bass was pretty sure that was the point. This was about retribution. 

Bossman, she'd mumbled as she sawed back and froth. Bossman this and Bossman that. Not again. Never again, she'd sobbed, but kept cutting until she was through at last, skin and gristle and bone giving way to her hate.

Her husband, after a fashion, they learn later. She'd been 12, and she'd had no choice, and when she'd grown up some, he'd moved on to her little sister. 

It's only when they are pulling the bodies away for burial that he finds the shiny badges lying bloodied in the dust. Bass picks them both up, frowning, and looks around at the pretty little town. They've just killed the only law it had.

The house on the bluff was comfortable, and they'd be close to the sea. Between them, they've probably got enough diamonds to buy it from the girl. They could farm, he thinks. And if that didn't work, well, they had more experience than most at law enforcement.

Penance, he thinks, and the long dormant Catholic in him is already saying a prayer.

*

prompt: bicycle


End file.
